Faith left all her clothes behind at Ha-Ramantsha. When she got to Jozi her dad bought her clothes; he was getting much better. Faith went to see him daily and he took her out every Saturday to her to the mall.

Faiths mother started refusing when her dad wanted to take her out. She did not want faith to get all the expensive things from her dad because her mother’s boyfriend was taking care of them.

Faith’s mother started to abuse her even more. She did not give her food or pocket money, and she kept Faith indoors all the time.

One day Faith stood up to her mom.

“Ma, I want to live with Dad,” Faith said one evening.

“What? You’ll never!” her mom yelled.

“But why? He’s my father and I want to live with him?”

“Your father is a no good unrealistic man. He’s selfish and a coward. He’s not fit to raise a child. You won’t go!” Doris yelled.

Faith could see that her mom was really getting angry, so she let it go. But she would raise it every night; she just kept on having faith.

One morning when Faith was preparing for school, she was ironing in the living room; she asked her where her boyfriend was. Her mother did not reply.

“Please greet him for me,” Faith said politely. Her mother got so angry that Faith spoke about her boyfriend, that she accidentally burnt Faith with the hot iron as she was trying to give her a beating.

That day Faith was in so much pain. She didn’t go to school, she stayed at home with her bandaged thigh. Her father was surprised when she didn’t go past to get her pocket money. But then he thought maybe she had lunch that day.

Faith locked herself inside her room the whole day. Later that evening Faith’s mother came with a guy. Faith knew that it was her new step father; she was introduced to so many different ones lately that she was fed-up. When her mother introduced them, she greeted and went back to her room.

No one could replace Faith’s father from her heart. She had a close relationship with her dad. Her dad was her mom, father and her best friend. They laughed together they went shopping together, they were close.

Her mother was the negligent parent. When winter came and Faith got the flu, her mother didn’t care. Faith was so sick she couldn’t get out of bed. Her temperature was high, she was vomiting constantly, and later she got tonsils. Her mother did not care whether she was sick or not. After three days of missing school, her mother got tired of nursing her.

She sent her to school as sick as she was. That day after lunchtime as faith was going back to class, she started vomiting. She vomited so much that she collapsed. The teachers called an ambulance and she got admitted to hospital. The school tried to reach her mother but she was not picking up her phone so they left her voice messages informing her of what had happened. She came later that night to the hospital, saying she had back to back meetings.

Faith didn’t want to speak to her so she pretended to be asleep. After faith was discharged from hospital, her mother tried being there for her but Faith was sick of her mother’s pretence. She knew that when she got better, Doris wouldn’t care again; she would go back to her selfish ways.

Faith got better and better while her mother spent most of her days out partying.

***

Tell us: What do you think of Dora’s behaviour?